


Loved you for a hundred years

by selflessbellamy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, also clarke wears bellamy's clothes (you're welcome), because i'm a sucker for these two being dorks in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 01:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9856700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selflessbellamy/pseuds/selflessbellamy
Summary: He thinks he’s loved her for a hundred years.And now that she’s standing in front of him, the unforgiving rain making her golden hair stick to her face, the expression of a flood caught within her gaze, he suddenly remembers every moment: Every moment that makes him wish he’d told her a long time ago, when they were nothing but a pair of kids sharing strange dreams and peanut butter sandwiches.(aka: the one in which they grow up together, and they spend eighteen years trying not to fall in love)





	

He thinks he’s loved her for a hundred years. 

And now that she’s standing in front of him, the unforgiving rain making her golden hair stick to her face, the expression of a flood caught within her gaze, he suddenly remembers every moment: Every moment that makes him wish he’d told her a long time ago, when they were nothing but a pair of kids sharing strange dreams and peanut butter sandwiches.

He remembers her warm laugh as the sound of it burns through the back of his mind, filling every chamber of him until he is a paper crumbling at the edges, left blackened by the sweet memory. Oh, how he needs her to laugh like that again, needs her to be seven years old, holding his hand while giggles bounce on the fabric of their pillow fort.

“Clarke…” _Don’t leave._ Those words won’t emerge as they have stuck to the inside of his throat, too heavy to fly out like they were meant to. Desperate, he cups her face that is wet from the raindrops that have mixed with tears, so he can no longer tell the difference. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters, when pain is mercilessly tearing at his heart, determined to shred it to pieces.

Glancing at her mouth immediately has him squeezing his eyes shut. _Breathe. Her lips are just a curve, just a small part of a masterpiece. She won’t crumble if you kiss them._

“Bellamy-“ Her voice a distant croak through the blur of his thoughts, Clarke puts an arm around his waist and her face to his chest. Then, she sobs, and he prays that his leather jacket will catch each of them as they emerge.

“Listen to me,” he begins, trying to mask the sound of his heart shattering as it threatens to make his voice crack. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he pushes her off his chest, which causes their gazes to meet in a nebula of blue and brown. 

Suddenly, it all flashes back…

 

And he’s five, knocking at the glass of her window. She is sitting on the bed, eating cold lasagna off a paper plate while the tabby cat lies on her feet, warming them.

 _Mom and dad are fighting,_ she says. His eyebrows knitting together, he nods before crawling into her room through the window like he’s already done so many times.

It makes her feel better, so he lets her draw an orange dragon on his arm… Smiling at her, he hopes she knows that she can slay it if that’s what she wants.

 

Then, he’s nine, in the grass by her side. To her, the clouds in the sky all look like broken hearts and moving vans, but he assures her that they look like rabbits.

It makes her feel better, so he lets her embrace him, and finds himself holding on.

 

Next, he’s thirteen, playing his guitar underneath her window at an ungodly hour, and the words come flying out of his mouth like sweet nothingness. Of course, he’s trying to cheer her up the way that chocolate ice cream does, but once his song is finished, she tells him, with the shadow of a smile on her face, that he must never kiss her… It makes her feel better, so he makes the promise.

 

Time flies, just like her at seventeen, dancing her way across his room in nothing but a sheer white shirt and dark-washed shorts; the ones with the _Starry Night_ pocket. He remembers being with her when she saw them in the store, and how she looked at them like he thought she’d never look at him.

From his bed, he’s watching her, amusement caught in his gaze, and when she looks back, only to find him shirtless, color rushes to her cheeks, but because it makes her feel better he convinces himself that it’s nothing.

 

With that, he’s back to a moment that is drowning in the rain. “Listen to me,” he repeats. “I meant what I said. Please don’t… Please don’t run from me.”

At his words, her lips part as her hand grabs onto the fabric of his soaked shirt. Releasing a quick breath from the cage of her lungs, Clarke holds his gaze. “Kissing me breaks the promise, remember?”

“Screw the damn promise, Clarke!” To his surprise, she barely blinks at his sudden outburst, but when he starts to move away from her, her eyes fill with rage: _She’s thunder impersonating a girl in a cobalt dress, but he’s always known it._ “I didn’t mean that.”

“Oh, of course you did!” 

In the moments that pass upon those words, it feels like everything is going to shatter, him having turned his shoulder to her, his gaze directed towards the ground. The water fills his lungs, and he’s gasping for air, but after all, it’s her that brings him back to the surface with a soft pull on his sleeve. 

“…But I love you too.” 

Time stops, which makes him five, nine, thirteen, seventeen and eighteen all at once when he slowly turns his head to look at her, the tears in her ocean blue eyes and closes the space between them. Yet, his lips aren’t touching hers, only the tips of their noses brush, because even after all these years, he still craves permission. “I don’t know what else to say, Bellamy…” She mumbles, the words ghosting over his lips.

“You don’t-“ What cuts him off is her hands on either side of his face, pulling him impossibly closer until the storm folds around their embrace. In that moment, he knows he’s loved her for a hundred years, without question, without hesitation - it has always been her.

As if hypnotized, he looks down at her, convinced that she has changed her mind. Maybe, the truth is that it was never really made up. All that escapes is her name again, broken like the promise before he bends his head slightly to capture her lips with his own - his hand tangling in wild waves of her wet hair and his heart beating a tattoo against his ribcage.

And she’s five, laughing as she chases him down the street. Nine, splitting her cookie with him during lunchtime while he talks about heroes and emperors. Thirteen, humming as he struggles to braid her hair and seventeen kissing his knuckles after anger caused him to punch his locker.

Yeah, this kiss is a whirlwind as her fingertips run through his hair, and he believes that they both broke the promise a while ago. _Together,_ unable to fight something so powerful and now it becomes clear that they’ve lost the war.

 

“Clarke--“ Breaking the kiss, Bellamy tries to regain his breath, but it’s difficult when she is looking at him, pupils dilated to the point where he can hardly see the blue in her eyes. “Let’s go.”

“Are you telling me you want to ditch the rest of the prom?” Clarke asks, a teasing edge to her voice, and Bellamy groans, because she knows that the only reason why he went in the first place was because she wanted to go with him. “What do you want to do, then?”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a question that clings the atmosphere inside his car as they drive to his house, the place where they spent most of their childhood together, playing pretend and building with Legos. Now, it seems as though that was centuries ago, because suddenly the sweet, freckled boy of her memories is now making her skin feel unbearably hot; her cheeks and chest flushed as she fidgets with the end of her dress.

“You alright?” Bellamy inquires, glancing at her while parking the car in the driveway.

“Yeah…” But Clarke can only bring herself to look at his hands on the steering wheel. However, that is only until she remembers how they were pressed against the small of her back a few minutes ago. She doesn’t have to look at him to know that his brows have furrowed at the sound of the nerves breaking through her voice, yet she still does her best to seem calm, stepping out of the car.

 

“Okay…” He starts once they’re inside, and she just about expects that word to be some kind of indication that he is going to push her against a wall to make out with her, but that isn’t what happens. Instead, he says: “I’m going to change into set of clothes that doesn’t stick to me like glue. Do you want to borrow a pair of my sweatpants? A shirt?”

Perhaps it’s a stupid reaction, but Clarke nearly tears up, and she doesn’t know if it’s relief or just utter, unexplainable love for him - Maybe it’s both. In attempt to mask her reaction, she nods quickly. Nevertheless, he gives her a reassuring smile before he disappears into his room to pick out clothes, which is something that reminds her that she can never hide anything from him.

While he changes in his room, she does the same in the bathroom, just like they usually do on their weekly sleepovers, but frankly this is the first time that she has borrowed some of his clothes: His favorite dark blue sweater and a pair of gray sweatpants. It’s way too big, but it makes her feel so warm and safe that her heart can barely handle it, as it flutters with affection. 

Entering the living room, Clarke finds him already seated on the couch in his usual spot, and she settles next to him, curls into his side. For a few minutes, Bellamy lets her rest her head on his chest, running his fingers through her hair, then he simply murmurs: “Which movie do you wanna watch?” 

“Bellamy--“ 

“What?” Once again, his eyebrows furrow, and as he looks at her, noticing the confused expression on her face, he signs, which manages to confuse her even more.

Chuckling warmly, Bellamy taps the tip of her nose with his finger. “Clarke… We’re just going to watch a movie, okay? So will you please tell your nerves that they aren’t welcome here?” 

At the raise of his eyebrows, she laughs, leaning in to catch a wild, dark brown curl that has fallen into his line of vision. Their faces are so close that she can count the freckles that dust his cheeks, running her fingertip over them: Once it reaches the last freckle by his upper lip, he smiles and she wonders how she was ever afraid of loving him…

… It honestly feels like the easiest thing in the world.

That is what she breathes against his lips when she moves to kiss him. Their relationship, until this moment, was held back by her fear as well as his selflessness.

 

_Not anymore… Never again._


End file.
